Chapter 4

Front 1

cultural space

Back 1

a- The communicative practices that construct meanings in, through andabout particular places.

b. Cultural space shapes verbal and nonverbal communicative practices.i. i.e. Classrooms, club, library.

c. Cultural spaces are constructed through the communicative practices developed and livedby people in particular places.

d. Communicative practices include: i. The languages, accents, slang, dress, artifacts, architectural design, the behaviorsand patterns of interaction, the stories, the discourses and histories.

e. Places and the cultural spaces that are constructed in particular locations also give rise tocollective and individual identities.

Front 2

Place, Cultural Space and Identity

Back 2

a. Stereotypes, assumptions, and judgments are associated with cities, towns, andneighborhoods.

b. People use cultural space to create avowed and ascribed identities.

c. Avowed Identity: The way we see, label and make meaning about ourselves.

d. Ascribed Identity: The way others may view, name and describe us and our group.

e. Geographical locations intersect with social locations (i.e. race, class, gender) to createlocations of enunciation.

f. Locations of enunciation: Sites or positions from which to speak. A platform from whichto voice a perspective and be heard and/or silenced.

Front 3

Displacing Culture and Cultural Space

Back 3

a. In the context of globalization, culture travels across places and are re-placed in newenvironments.

b. (Dis) placed culture and cultural space: A notion that captures the complex,contradictory and contested nature of cultural space and the relationship between cultureand place that has emerged in the context of globalization.

c. Time-space Compression: A characteristic of globalization that brings seeminglydisparate cultures into closer proximity, intersection and juxtaposition with each other(Havey, 1990)

Front 4

Glocalization: “In here-ness” AND “Out there-ness”

Back 4

a. “In-hereness AND out-thereness”: A characteristic of globalization in which a particular“here” is linked to “there,” and how this linkage of places reveals colonial histories andpostcolonial realities.i. We need to investigate how this particular “here” is linked to “there” and howthis linkage of places reveals colonial histories and postcolonial realities.

b. Glocalization: The dual and simultaneous forces of globalization and localization.

i. First introduced in 1980s to describe Japanese business practices

ii. Later popularized by sociologist Roland Robertson (1991).

iii. The concept allows us to think about how globalizing forces always operate inrelationship to localizing forces.

c. In order to understand the intercultural dynamics occurring in cultural spaces around us,we need to examine the histories of interaction that literally and figuratively shape andconstruct meanings about the ground upon which we stand today. i. Example: Los Angeles has a mixture of ethnic communities today. The land wasfirst occupied by indigenous American Indians, which was invaded by theSpanish, inhabited by Mexicans, and taken over by White Americans and otherracial groups.ii. “We are here because you were there.”

Front 5

Cultural Space, Power and Communication

Back 5

a. Throughout history and today, space has been used to establish, exert and maintain powerand control.b. Power is signified, constructed and regulated through size, shape, access, containmentand segregation of space.c. The use of space communicates.i. Example: In the Middle Ages in Europe, churches were the tallest buildings andoccupied central locations in cities signifying the importance of religiousauthority.ii. Example: In the Ottoman Empire, no building was built higher than the minaretsof mosques.iii. Example: European colonizers erected churches on top of local religious sitesfrom the Americas to India and Africa to materially and symbolically imposecolonial rule.iv. Today, the signs of power in metropolises around the world are the financialbuildings—the towering, glitzy, eye-catching economic centers of transnationalcapitalism.v. Edward T. Hall (1966) elaborated in his book The Hidden Dimension, the waycultures use space communicates. d. Segregated Cultural Spacei. Segregated space based on socio-economic, racial, ethnic, sexual, political andreligious differences, both voluntary and imposed.ii. Minority cultural groups may choose to live in communities in close proximity asa way to reinforce and maintain cultural spaces and to buffer themselves fromreal or perceived hostile forces around them.iii. These cultural spaces often provide and reinforce a sense of belonging,identification and empowerment.iv. Yet, many historical and contemporary examples illustrate how spatialsegregation has been imposed and is used to establish and maintain thehegemony of the dominant group and to restrict and control access of nondominantgroups to power and resources.1. Example” The word “ghetto,” used primarily today to refer to ethnic orracial neighborhoods of urban poverty, originally referred to an area inVenice, Italy where Jews were segregated and required to live in the1500s.2. Example: The reservation system imposed on Native Americans, the JimCrow laws (1865-1960s) that segregated Blacks and the isolation ofJapanese Americans during WWII are examples of forced segregationthat maintained the hegemony of European Americans and limited accessfor non-dominant groups in the U.S.3. Example: Sundown towns or “whites only” towns, named for theirthreats of violence aimed at Blacks after the sun sets, are places that havedeliberately excluded Blacks for decades and which, today, increasinglyexclude Latinos.4. Example: Schools today are re-segregated to the same level as in 1970saccording to a clear racial and class line.5. Example: In Hurricane Katrina, while all people living in New Orleansand the Gulf area were impacted by the natural disaster, low-income,working class neighborhoods were hit the hardest.v. Segregation of cultural spaces structure and reinforce different power positionswithin socio-economic, political and cultural hierarchies.vi. Segregation, whether it is class, race, gender-based or an intersection of all threeis a powerful means to control, limit and contain non-dominant groups.e. Contested Cultural Spacei. Geographic locations where conflicts engage people with unequal control andaccess to resources in oppositional and confrontational strategies of resistance.ii. Example: Chinese immigrants who came to the U.S. to work from the 1850sonward were forced to live in isolated ethnic enclaves known as Chinatowns inlarge cities such as San Francisco and New York.1. This is where the stereotypical image of Chinese restaurants and laundryshops, Japanese gardeners and produce stands, and Korean grocery storesbegan.2. These (occupations) did not begin out of any natural or instinctual desireon the part of Asian workers, but as a response to prejudice, exclusion,and institutional discrimination— a situation that still continues in manyrespects today.iii. Example: After the devastating 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco,White city leaders and landlords wanted to re-locate Chinatown to the outskirtsof town claiming that it was an “eyesore and health hazard. 1. A political battle ensued with the Chinese community leaders stronglyprotesting the forced displacement. Finally, they were able to convincethe White civic leaders that Chinatown could be re-built in a “traditionalOriental” style to attract tourists and contribute to the city’s revenue andappeal.iv. Polysemic: A condition in which multiple meanings are constructed about certainplace, people and phenomena.1. Chinatown is a polysemic space with multiple meanings.2. Chinatown was originally a place of ethnic exclusion, a home to Asianimmigrants, and then it became cultural resource, and a tourist attractionand commodity.v. Example: In the early 2000s, in Hudson, New York, a small town of 7,000 just100 miles north of New York City, residents joined together in what has beendescribed as a lopsided power battle between David and Goliath.1. The largest cement company in the world, Swiss-owned Holderbank,planned to build a massive, coal-fired cement manufacturing factorynearby Hudson on the banks of the river.2. Competing concerns and interests—the lure of job opportunities,detrimental environmental effects and political affiliations—dividedresidents across lines of race, gender and sexual orientation.3. “Spaces are contested precisely because they concretize the fundamentaland recurring, but otherwise unexamined, ideological and socialframeworks that structure practice” (Low & Lawrence-Zúñiga, 2003, p.18).4. Contested cultural spaces like hip hop culture expose how sociallyconstructed ideological frameworks such as race, class and genderfunction to divide, segregate and exclude.f. Hybrid Cultural Spacesi. The intersection of intercultural communication practices that construct meaningsin, through and about particular places within a context of relations of power.ii. The following three examples of hybrid cultural spaces help us understand thepower dynamics that structure the terms and conditions of mixing in hybridcultural spaces.iii. Example: Imagine you are sitting in a McDonald’s in Moscow, Russia. Youmight expect to find a situation similar to what you experience here in the U.S.—a fast, inexpensive, (fat) filling meal in a familiar and standardized space (eachone is pretty much like the next one) where you either sit down, eat your mealand leave or take the drive-through option.1. You might assume you will have an experience of “American” culture inRussia. Yet, when Shannon Peters Talbot (as cited in NederveenPieterse, 2004, p. 50) conducted an ethnographic study of McDonald’s inMoscow, Russia, she found something quite different.2. Moscowites came to McDonald’s to enjoy the atmosphere often hangingout for more than an hour.3. They pay more than one third of the average Russian daily wage for ameal and are drawn to this cultural space for its uniqueness anddifference.4. Instead of “one size fits all” management practices that are generallyapplied in the U.S., McDonald’s in Moscow offers a variety of incentiveoptions for employees